Valentine Round Up

This week is going to be filled with generosity. Well, that's what we hope to find in our children as they skip along to school this week with their valentines for classmates.

I have one set of valentines under my belt with three more to go in the next two days. They might not get as creative as the one I'm showing you today. I was helping my son with his maze valentines, which started out as an adventure with the new electronic cutting machine, when I remembered we signed up for the "surprise snack" as well. It doesn't have to be edible and we all appreciate less sugar and more creative play, so I created a valentine activity booklet for my son to hand out.

To make up for a big change in our design with the maze part, I suggested that my boy go and asked his clever daddy to make a heart shape maze and bring it back to me. Boy, did daddy ever deliver! Isn't that just the sweetest looking maze ever! I traced the pencil lines with a black marker and scanned it in and then did a little CorelDraw magic to clean it up.

Sticker fun

The maze was already printed and folded by my enthusiastic son before the epiphany about the surprise snack happened. Next time I think I'll put the to and from page as the cover. I printed out a heart sticker on some Invent It label paper and hand trimmed it with a bit of white space around it just to make it a bit more fun.

Heart Tic Tac Toe

I couldn't resist adding a tic tac toe game with a sleeve of heart markers. I stapled a small cello bag into the spine so there would be a storage place for them. I hope they don't slide out of the bag when my son hand delivers them, but if not there's always the old fashioned pencil version.

There was also a little image for coloring and a dot-to-dot in the middle of the book, too. Just enough to complete by the time his classmates get home from school.

What was your favorite valentine when you were growing up? Mine was definitely those little 4 chocolate candies in a heart box. Sweets are my favorite any time though.

Have a wonderful Monday... as best as Monday's can get! : )